Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Sergei Prokofiev’s beautifully eerie time keeping score. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. A row of conical hedges transform with one rotation into metronomes. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. A dancer’s leg strikes twelve, over and over. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. A leg can swing like a pendulum, oscillating back and forth from a central point. A body has become a clock, proving Salvador Dali true: "every portrait can be transformed into living room furniture", and thus Mae West’s lips become a sofa on which to sit. The body can become an object and an object can become a body. Time and transformation are the threads that bind this new production of The Australian Ballet’s Cinderella together.

Leanne Stojmenov as Cinderella in Alexei Ratmansky’s new production of Cinderella premiered by The Australian Ballet (Image credit: Jeff Busby)